the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile
@foggyus91 suggested/pushed/encouraged me to start a thread about this. It was related to Darko's post about 12 audiophile misconceptions. One was that we are all about music - vs gear. I think that subject has been chewed up already a 100 times. I am not sure anyone has anything new to say.
However, that made me think about the day I turned into an audiophile.
It was when I bought my first "gateway" product that was affordable but audiophile quality and led me to explore more and tweak and switch and experiment and never be fully content but always be smiling when I turned the power on. It's been about the sound and not the music and that's fine. But I realize now that those Monitor Audio speakers I bought from craigslist were my gateway drug
Were you always an audiophile or was there such a moment and a piece of hardware that made the difference?
(Lastly, I am very uneasy and on the fence about this forum and starting a thread - for my last correspondence with the moderators. What I learned should bother anyone who cares about fairness or even the appearance of it. I can't discuss it because it will get removed - I tried, my comment lived for less than 5 minutes, )
Kenwood would be the name for me. In 1984 I graduated a Navy school in Idaho Falls ID. A $2000 bonus was mine for the extra work. On to the Fleet, finally. I knew my CJ7 would be my only personal refuge so I promptly drove to the one car audio place in town.
I dropped every cent on my new system! Everything was the best Kenwood had to offer. Dolby C auto reverse tape deck. 3 way adjustable crossover in the console with the tape deck. I had a box already built across the rear. A perfect place to put a 8" woofer behind each front seat, driven by a 270 wpc amp. 2 5" midranges gut level in the dash driven by a 140 wpc. The 2 1" tweeters were mounted at the roof line, forehead level with a 70 wpc.
SO FUN to find out you need a new alternator! Talk about enveloped in sound. The signature piece to hear was Frankenstein...The Jeep just bounced and when the ufo lands or whatever the ch ch ch ch noise was it just drilled into my head.
However, now and forever I LOVE my DCM Time Frame 2000s! Just So Good... Maybe with todays big tvs they could have sold more
The father of my best friend of over 60 years was an audiophile. He was a McIntosh loyalist from the 50’s on and upgraded his gear every few years. He would have either jazz or classical music just blasting in their house anytime he was home. If I recall correctly, he had big Bozak speakers. I was in that house almost daily. And so my friend (his son) and I became Mac owners as soon as we could afford it which was in our young 20’s. We both bought the small integrated amp of the day. I think it was the MA6100?? I am not really sure anymore. I had a variety of entry level gear but I guess technically, that integrated amp was my audiophile gateway piece. But really it was the dad’s gear that did it. We’ve both continued to own Mac all these years with many, many upgrades along the way. My current system is shown here on the virtual systems pages. Oh and as you’d expect, we’re both jazz and classical music lovers.
Summer of 1970 when I was 18 and heard a system at my friend’s house: Thorens TD125/Shure V15, Kenwood integrated amp with meters and Large Advent speakers. Listened to Hendrix Electric Ladyland, Procul Harum A Salty Dog and It’s a Beautiful Day. Sounded great compared to the GE console we had at home.
I started out in 1956 at age 17 with a Webcor Portable record player, graduated to a console with a radio and turntable under the lid. Finally, in 1978 my transformative product was a Pioneer SX-1050! Which I still own though it is rarely called into duty. I couldn’t afford speakers after buying the Pioneer so I joined a group at HP that had a blueprint of the Bose 901 speakers, accurate down to the sources for every part. We commandeered the Fab Shop to cut the speakers to the proper size and drill the stepped circles to fit the nine speakers. What a mess we made. The next weekend we put the speakers together and wired them along with the equalizer for each pair of speakers. I was the only female and I had a blast!
My second transformative product was importing the Quad ESL-63 Electrostatic speakers from a store in London. I replaced the SX-1050 with an Audiomat Arpege tube integrated amp and I was in audiophile heaven.
i still own Quad ESL-63 speakers, the US Monitor version, and I like to joke that I’ll be buried with them. And yes, I still like them that much. I’m into classical music and opera and they are a perfect fit for the music I enjoy listening to.
My current amp and preamp are Luxman, the Cl-38uC and the MQ-88uC. My other sources are a Berkeley Audio DAC Reference Series 2+, Roon Nucleus, Audio Alchemy DMP-1 Media Server, Ayre DX-5 DSD SACD Player and a fully restored B&O Beogram 4004 turntable. Oh, and a Nakamichi DR-1 tape cassette player. I’ve been an audiophile most of my life and at age 86 this system is probably it.
I would say audio enthusiast before becoming an audiophile; JBL L100 speakers at 17 years of age. Then when I purchased a used pair of Aerial Acoustic Model 5 speakers in my 50s I became an audiophile. My first exposure to audio was taking a handheld am/fm transistor, 9 volt, radio and connecting it to a Heath Kit 2 way speaker. The speaker had a 10 inch woofer and two 5 inch midrange cones. It was and looked just like an AR2a minus the tweeter. (I owned pair given to me in college. great sound just not the same ump as the L100's) I used a mono mini earplug that had alligator clips on the end to connect to the speaker at around 10 years of age. That wire opened up a whole new world to me as the sound from that speaker far outweighed the hand held radio. I guess this was my first foray into separate components!
Enjoy reading this thread - lots of product names from the past that bring back memories. My path began with a pair of stacked Advent speakers powered by a Mitsubishi integrated amplifier and a Dual turntable.
I almost forgot that when I bought the Proceed separates at that audio store tent sale, the owner of the (big) store came to see me and said “I just wanted to meet the person who bought the Proceed gear” and talked to me as if I knew what I was doing hahahaha! That’s when I knew I’d bought something special.
Don't laugh, my gateway product was a Soundesign receiver vintage 1972! I loved music, at the time anything Motown and starting on Yes and Chicago. My old close-and-play had served me well, but I had heard Chicago 1 at a friend's house and needed to do SOMETHING. The Soundesign was all I could afford. Proudly, I took it to college where my neighbor had an AR table, Yamaha integrated and Heresy speakers. Yup, addicted, I was!
I built a dynaco integrated amp during spring break my freshman year in college. I know weirdo and bought an AR turntable. That was the beginning. But it went full in after buying a pair of Spica TC-50’s like 5 years later.
I purchased a Denon receiver and B&W bookshelves to incorporate into my 5.1 HT ten years ago. I soon came to enjoy stereo music far more than HT. Curious to improve the sound, I purchased a stereo amp, later an external dac, streamer and so on. I noticed vast improvement with each component addition/upgrade along the way which perpetuated the constant swapping of gear.
This has been a fun read. Lots of old memories mentioned. Someone mentioned TV Lenny from Madison WI. He was said to have sold 1/4 of everything that Sansui made. I don't know if it's true but maybe. He pushed the hell out of it and had at least two large stores in the midwest. Last thing I heard in an American TV store (TV Lenny, Crazy Lenny), was Mirage M1's powered by Adcom GFA 555 amp. I was fairly impressed. CD I think if I remember right, was the time when you couldn't hardly find a cartridge for your turntable.
Anyway, lots of stuff I've had over the years, Bose, Crown, Shure V15 (still have two of them). Linn LP12 (still have), only took me 50 years to get one. If there was a hall of fame for making loud noise at parties, Bose 901's would be in it. Not perfect by any means but they liked to rock. I still own several pair even though I don't use them anymore.
Someone mentioned lusting for Mac but settling for Crown. I did the same, less than half the money, close in power. I had an IC150 preamp and DC300 A amp, bought new in 1975. It served me well for many years. I sold it to my brother, he sold it to my other brother and my son now has it. Hasn't worked in awhile but one of those things that you can't just throw out. With that, I bought a Pioneer PL12 D turntable and Shure V15 III. Couldn't afford the Thorens TD 125 that I wanted and settled on the Pioneer. It also served me for many years. My nephew is still using it. The series II 901's were also in the deal. I'd heard the Maggies, Ohms and others at the time but bang for the buck (decibel level?) seemed to be with the 901's. Sold off the whole system after starting a new career and having two kids. Spent the next few years working 2 or more jobs and not having the time or money for any decent stereo components.
Had some mix and match components thrown together to at least have something to listen to around the late 80's. Sony ES amps, Onkyo preamp (first time I had a remote and I still own it but sits on the shelf. Had a Yamaha linear tracking turntable. The Yamaha started to fail and I moved to an AR (THE AR), which I still have and my son is using it. First CD player was a discman portable. Tried some carousels and multi disc players and hated them all. Bought a used Denon which I still use.
Moved on to VPI turntable 25 years or so ago(HW 19 III), Cary tube phono preamp (PH 301), which I still have and use both. I now switch on and off between the VPI and the Linn. I see no reason to get rid of either one. Recently added Cary SLP 98 P F1 to the system and am very pleased. Been trying different tubes over the last few months and having fun. My amps are getting old Parasound HCA 2200 II, which I use to biamp AR9's, also getting old but still good. Their bass response is downright amazing. I also added a pair of KEF R107's. In the midst of tube upgrades and then on the probably the last detail, cables and power treatments.
This has been a process that started in the 1960's with a system from Radio Shack that I took into the army with me and it has never stopped evolving in one way or another. It probably will never stop evolving in some fashion. I don't know if that makes me an audiophile or not but probably at least something similar.
It started with the music of the late 1960s and early 1970s and progressed from car stereos to a pair of 12-inch Jensen triaxial drivers that I mounted into self-made birch-ply enclosures. Those big speakers (that I still own) travelled with me from dorms to homes for about 7 years until they were replaced by a pair of A/D/S L810s.
JBL L-110 at Tech Hi Fi in 1979. conrad-johnson Premier One in 1982 solidified my passion for HEA. Returned to Tech Hi Fi in 1982 and came home with a pair of Ohm Walsh 2’s. FWIW the salesman would not sell me the speakers until I brought a parent with me. I was 17 but could easily have passed for 14.
This has been interesting, particularly how influential the '70s decade has been in the audio hobby.
For me there was no identifiable time I became an "audiophile". But it started with music, Vaughn Monroe's "Ghost Riders In The Sky" when I was 7. Growing up there was often music in the house from my parent's consoles. In junior high I got a portable (suitcase style) mono player with BSR changer and AM, when I began collecting 45s. That survived through high school when I began buying LPs, and on until half way through college when I built my first stereo system - Dynakit ST-70, PAS-3, FM-3, and Dual 1009 with Empire cartridge.
Over the years I've owned an uncounted number of components but music always came first, with an effort to simply have a system which maximized the listening experience.
My journey started when I purchased my 1st vinyl record, Linkin Parks Hybrid Theory. I had no player, no system no nothing. I only bought the album as a way to remember and have something in memory of Chester Benningtons after his passing. I ended up buying a few LP posters and another vinyl record of theirs a few months later. And now owning a few records and appreciating the art and reading how so many enjoyed the sound of records my curiosity began to get the best of me. SInce I had the record I began to tell myself, it would be neat if I could play it. Knowing nothing about nothing when it came to audiophile gear I went into a audiophile shop here in northern Ca ran by a couple from England who introduced me to all sorts of very interesting equipment. The sticker prices were a little shock to the system especially when your new, but I eventually settled on a very lightly used Naim amp, focal speaker and rega tt. That was my first sytem, I’ve had many since, and today have what I consider my end game system. That being said I still have my first sytem.
Not Such a Product that made the change, but a change of attitude.
I walked in another direction to meeting with Sales Team Members and being informed of how I should Listen and being told what devices I should be looking to exchange for new wares in the Store.
I started to meet with individuals in the know about producing bespoke item audio devices and it did not take too much investigation of what was achievable, before I had my first order placed for a commission build.
Today very little in the system is not commission built, the system is bespoke in many ways.
I don't know that there was one product that did it. I've always liked music, but mostly it used to be for (long ago, background at parties or getting high) or later in life when I was doing other tasks. When I got into Dolby Prologic, someone turned me onto the idea of getting a subwoofer and speakers to accompany a sub; after that someone came over to watch The Wall live at Berlin and that person started talking to me about better end audio and because of him I bought a Carver vacuum tube CDP; a while later I bought Cary's entry level tube amp and a separate HT digital pre and some better cables and interconnects, and it was at that point that I truly got interested in what upgrades would do to my dedicated listening experience.
My Gateway may seem a little obscure, but it is true. When I was between two and three years of age I needed to have my tonsils removed (I'm 82 and it used to be a common practice.) My grandmother owned a funeral home and it was decided to give me a treat by letting me ride to the hospital in the funeral home's hearse. For kicks (so I was told) my uncle turned on the siren and the "music" from the siren is my first experience of any kind that I can remember. I have been chasing amazing audio experiences ever since. My first audiophile product was the trumpet I began playing in fourth grade followed by a 45 rpm turntable which was purchased after hearing Elvis singing Heartbreak Hotel. Becoming a serious audiophile happened when I heard a pair of Rogers LS35A speakers. The imaging blew my mind and I was hooked. A lot of audio gear has been bought and sold over the years and my current system consisting of Tannoy speakers, an Aric Audio Preamp, LTA DAC, Brinkmann Bardo TT/Hana Red, and First Watt SIT 5 monoblocs keep the adventure alive.
It’s the process—the ongoing fine‑tuning of the entire system setup—that makes me feel like a true audiophile, rather than any single component or piece of gear.
yes @lanx0003but there must have been a moment (in one you were lanx0002, in the next one 0003 - the audiophile) and in that moment something triggered you?
I started with Crazy Eddie in JHS, then Tech HiFi in HS. But the product that got me into audio was a pair of small B&W DM17 speakers that I bought in the late 70's from the first real audio store I ever made a purchase from. After getting married I took a long leave from audio equipment, but then I read about and bought a pair of KEF LS50 speakers that got me started again.
@gano I would attribute my gateway gear to the Wharfedale Linton speakers. My amplifier purchase was pretty straightforward—I’ve kept all three power/integrated amps I bought and never looked back. The speakers (and later, the DAC), however, were a different story. I home-auditioned three sets of speakers before finally settling on the Lintons. I’d say these speakers can be a bit unforgiving with poorly recorded material, but when the setup and synergy are right, the payoff is tremendous. They deliver a spacious soundstage, natural tonality and agile bass. That’s the fundamental reason they set me on a long journey into music listening—I wanted to tame this feral horse.
I should try the Lintons again @lanx0003I have read so many great things about them. I definitely love the looks but they weren't a good fit with my old amp.
My first setup was from Tech hifi $200 system with a Rotel receiver Garrard TT and Bose 301. Nobody I hung with heard of Rotel and gave me a "what's this "? Who knew they would be highly regarded decades later............
Later I upgraded to the Advent receiver using the great preamp/phono section to a Quad 303 and Maggies in the mid-seventies. It's been a wonderful journey.
Mine was car stereo in high school. I remember sitting in the driveway at 11pm and my Dad came out to see what I was doing, and I was just listening to Brothers in Arms on the system I just put in my car. Magical.
Speakers: first LS3/5a, followed by Dahlquest DQ-10 (first open baffle I believe) later mirage M3s (bipoles) and currently wide dispersion box speakers (underwood floor standing).
Going from a small portable mono Sears Silverton record player,(Xmas present when 8), to a Magnavox Sterophonic suit case size record player when 12. Upgrading from mono to stereo was the hook. Cream, Jimi Hendrix,Blue Cheer and more was the music of choice.
I started with a marantz integrated with a built in turntable when I was 16. I kept this through college and med school. In my residency, I was gifted $500 by a staff surgeon which when pooled with some meager savings allowed me to purchase entry level Klipsch speakers. When I started practice, I bought a NAD amp/preamp and disc player-my record collection saved (fortunately) in a closet-during the CD craze. One day my disc player died. Naples was a small town at that time and there was only one HI-FI store. They had a Meridian disc player on sale for $3500. This for us was an immense amount of money at that time and I was sure my wife-AKA CFO-would shoot this crazy idea down. I was actually scared to make the call to her. To my great surprise she said it was a good month and we had the funds and to go ahead and get it. I couldn't believe it. Anyhow, the sales person kept going on and on about how great this player was, that I was gonna hear all kinds of things I never had before, blah, blah blah. He even said that I would call him the minute I got home after playing a disc. I thought-enough BS, you've already made the sale. When I got home, I set it up, put in a well known disc and I couldn't believe my ears! It was exactly as he said. That moment was when I fully understood the difference between higher end and mid range gear and the immense improvements to be had. From that point on there was no going back. Over the next 20 years I have slowly put together what I feel is a great system. But, that was the gateway moment. And yes, I did make that phone call.
Seeing and hearing the Dahlquest DQ-10 speakers at Sound Associates in Toledo Ohio, late 70’s…game changer! My father was my biggest influence, we would go to all the local stereo stores on Saturday afternoons.
Observing others mentioning Dahlquist DQ10's brings to mind the first time I heard them at a Detroit area audio show, probably late 70's. Demo was in a smaller conference room, very nice setup, probably Audio Research gear, my best bud and I kept on going back to the room, I guess guys giving demo liked our enthusiasm so invited us for after hours listening with cocktails. Certainly made a lasting impression for me.
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